Somewhere along the line, a person and place become one. I have two places—two versions of me—one being a small town in the northeast corner of the Catskill Mountains called Tannersville, and the other, what used to be a small town just over the border in Canada called Niagara-on-the-Lake. I have not been to either of them in years, but it doesn’t matter. At the end of my life, if I were to be gathered to my ancestors, like Old Testament heroes, it would be to either of those places.
It is not hard to encounter people around Monadnock who are here because they are one with the region. The place knows them by name. It knew their parents and grandparents, it delights in their new generations. When I arrive in Tannersville, the ghosts of three generations welcome me. Likewise, in Niagara. If I am there with my children and grandchildren, we are six generations, altogether. The familiar landmarks, the stones underfoot, each street corner and lamppost, embrace our return with a murmur of welcome.
I am thinking of these things after a week with our two oldest grandchildren here at our cabin on the pond. Only one of them was around when we bought the place, which was early in our tenure as innkeepers. For a long time, they were closely guarded around the water and woods. But now—ages 13 and 10—they are emerging from under our wings to explore. Loading them into boats, our granddaughter with me in a canoe, and our grandson, independent in a kayak, we circumnavigated the pond, and I delighted in stopping to allow them to forage along the shore, and climb the rocks, christening them as explorers do—Eagle Rock, Shark Rock, Picnic Rock (which may have been my suggestion). Casting off his restraints, our grandson paddled far ahead, occasionally looking back to make sure the distance between us was widening, which meant, to me, getting nearer his own place in the world. I was careful to appear engaged elsewhere, pointing in every opposite direction, on the hunt with his sister for sunbathing turtles and water snakes. But I watched him. I watched him move away, toward the things I’d love us to share, perhaps including this place.
They hiked to Juggernaut Pond, drove to Flume Gorge, planted beans, bought strawberries, made ice cream, spent a rainy day at a museum, anchored a rubber raft to the floor of the pond, sat up straight at lunch with great-grandmother, fended off ticks, and tried to do the same with school summer reading. Along the way, they were in the car when it braked for a doe and her fawn, a bear, and a moose. A New Hampshire driving trifecta.
When does a person become also a place? I can look across the room and see a picture on the wall of me riding shotgun on a farm tractor with my father in the Catskills. I am maybe five. Younger than my grandchildren. I don’t remember the tractor ride, but if looks don’t lie, it left a mark. In my last column, I wrote about the banana ice cream at Avondale in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Follow me through the door of the place today, but don’t ask what flavor I’d prefer. If not banana, you would have to wonder what meaning life has ever had for me.
After a loaded week, characterized by adventure, I am curious about the meaning that may be developing inside our grandchildren. Watching them hop among the rocks, hunt frogs, I am curious about what lifelong attachments are being created, what is beginning to harden apart from their personalities. I am hoping they will carry something from this week, from this place. Maybe, hopefully, because it means a part of me will be carried with it.